Color-only Trademarks

What do UPS, Tiffany and Co., and Owens Corning have in common?  The mere sight of the color of their product (Pullman Brown, Robin's Egg Blue, and Pink) brings to mind who they are without ever having to place a logo or word on their products.   These marks demonstrate how real people shop for goods and services and how trademarks are about providing a potential consumer resources to identify the source of the goods and services they are purchasing - while preventing others from using those identifiers to create consumer confusion. Color Trademarks The leading case involving color as a trademark is  Qualitex Co. V. Jacobson Prods. Co. (514 U.S. 159, 161, 163, 115 S. Ct. 1300, 131 L.Ed. 2d 248 (1995)), which noted that a color can sometimes serve as a trademark by itself  “when that color has attained ‘secondary meaning’ and therefore identifies and distinguishes a particular brand (and thus indicates its ‘source’).”   The Court went on to provide that...
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I have a great idea for a tee-shirt!!!

Tee-Shirt Trademarks I have a great idea for a tee-shirt - can I register it as a trademark??? Short answer - probably not.  The main issue with whether a slogan or word  operates as trademark is how it is used.   This is especially true of tee-shirts. If the mark / slogan is just printed on a shirt – no protection – the Trademark Office deems that as being “merely ornamental” (there is an exception when the mark is also used for other products or business name).  However if the mark / slogan is also used to identify the tee-shirt company, it may serve as a trademark and be registered (i.e. it is a “source identifier”) – the only caveat is that you would need to show it being used in that manner rather than just emblazoned on the front.  Showing the mark this way can be done be showing the phrase on things like the name of an online store, packaging, an inside-tag,...
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When is a farm boy just like any other farm boy?

When is a farm boy just like any other farm boy? That's the question at the heart of a recent Federal Circuit decision (Odom's Tennessee Pride Sausage, Inc. v. FF Acquisition, LLC, No. 09-1473) involving a decision by the USPTO to grant a trademark registration to FF Acquisitions (a SuperValu company) over the objection of Odom (a retail food conglomerate). Despite the fact that the registration in question was merely adding the body onto an already registered mark making up the torso of a farm boy (mark on the right), Odom was concerned that the mark was now likely to confuse consumers and opposed the registration, citing its own registrations. Even though Odom argued that there were other factors to be considered under the DuPont test for likelihood of confusion, the USPTO and the Circuit court summarily dispatched the complaint by noting that the registered marks differed in...
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